


What A Nice Day For A White Wedding

by The_Inebriated_Literary_Virtuoso



Series: The Wedding AUs [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Wedding Night, Wedding Planning, wedding shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:18:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5568838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Inebriated_Literary_Virtuoso/pseuds/The_Inebriated_Literary_Virtuoso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sort of prequel for the wedding mentioned at the end of the last work and maybe a few things in between and after that.</p><p>**First Chapter Re-written!!**</p>
            </blockquote>





	What A Nice Day For A White Wedding

Reyna never truly believed she would get married. 

There are a lot of reasons for this. The first being she’s gay. But that changed the year that Jason and Nico got engaged. 

Nico is, in almost every sense of the word, the only family Reyna has. When they had met again at Hades and Persephone’s wedding and she’d heard about Jason her heart had constricted. For a moment she was worried that the same things Jason had done to her he’d do to Nico. Reyna wasn’t an intrinsically distrustful person, but years of experience and a relationship with Jason Grace under he belt made her wary. As the days wore on and she watched him look at Nico in ways he had never looked at her, she fell into comfortable support. Months later and Nico and Jason were being idiots, and Reyna fixed that right up. They got together. A year later they told Reyna they were engaged. 

The first reaction she had was shock, the second was a tightness in her chest she wasn’t sure how to explain, and finally came the acceptance. 

It happened like this.

Jason and Nico invited Reyna over to their apartment and sat her down.

She looked between them with narrowed eyes. “What did you both do? Why am I being forced to sit?”

Nico looked at her with worried eyes and then turned them to Jason to took his hand in comfort. Nico gulped and turned back to her. She was about to ask him what was wrong when he finally blurted it out. 

“We’re getting married.” Nico said quickly. 

Reyna stared at him for a moment before she turned to Jason. Then she turned to look at their intertwined hands, both donning silver rings. 

To her surprise, it didn’t hurt at all, actually. She had expected herself to feel betrayed or hurt or indignant or upset or wistful. But Nico was staring at her with wide, worried eyes, and Jason was rubbing circles into Nico’s palm and Reyna felt calmness wash over her. 

She smiled at him. “I’m so happy for you.”

Nico’s eyes widened even further, and he shrank away as if he was afraid she was lying and would blow up any minute. 

“You are?”

She turned to Jason. “Jason, give us a minute.”

He nodded and got up and left the room. 

Reyna put her hand over Nico’s, the one that had the ring on his finger. 

“Are you happy?”

Nico frowned. “What kind of-”

Reyna gave him a firm stare. “Are you happy, Nico?”

He gulped and nodded. He looked down at the ring on his hand in wonder. “Yeah.”

Reyna settled back in her seat. “Then that’s all there is to it.”

Nico frowned. “But don’t you- I thought. . .”

“You thought what? That I was still in love with Jason?”

Nico nodded, not meeting her eyes. 

Reyna chuckled. “Please, I dated him once when I was a senior in high school. It’s hardly grounds for a lost soulmate, Nico. Besides, you keep forgetting the key piece of information here, which is that I’m gay. I could hardly care less.”

Nico sighed and gave her a warily and slightly sad look. “I was worried you’d be upset.”

Reyna gave him a soft smile. He was the only one Reyna had ever deemed deserving of it. “How can I be upset when my best friend is getting married to man he loves? You wound me, Nico.”

He gave a small smile and looked at her hopefully. “So you really are okay with it?”

Reyna chuckled. “I hardly think I’m who you should be worried about. What about Piper?”

Nico shook his head. “I don’t think she’ll be too broken up about it. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

 

Two months later the United States passed the Marriage Equality Act. 

It was eight o’clock in the morning when Reyna got the news. She turned on the television and found the man on the news talking about it. Her heart stopped and her eyes began to water and before she could even think she was out the door and running to Jason and Nico’s apartment. 

She banged loudly on the door and Jason answered in what looked like hastily put on boxers. 

He shook his head. “We have to stop letting the Super let you pick the locks on the building.”

She was slightly out of breath and walked past him. “Is Nico here?”

Nico appeared in the doorway of his bedroom and his hair was wild and mussed. Reyna rolled her eyes but turned to them both. 

Nico frowned as Reyna turned and picked up the remote to their television. 

“Reyna, not that I don’t love having you over, what is this about?”

Reyna turned to where Jason and Nico stood together. “Have you both heard the news?”

Jason and Nico furrowed their brows identically. “No.” Nico said.

Reyna turned on the television and flipped to the news channel. In bold it read about the Marriage Equality Act finally being passed. 

She turned to them, her eyes suddenly watered and she hated how soft and warm her heart had begun to feel. She turned to Nico. 

“You can get married. You can get married, Nico.”

Nico looked past her at the television. “Oh my god.”

Jason stood there, completely still for a moment. “That means. . .”

“We can get married in the church my parents were married in.” Nico said softly. 

Reyna nodded, her heart and the lightness seizing her and she let out a wet laugh behind the tears that had begun to well in her eyes. 

Jason took a step forward, taking Nico’s hand, as they stood side by side looking at the television telling them what they’d always wanted to hear. Their silver rings glowed bright from the light that streamed in and Reyna watched on. She smiled at them and took a step forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders. 

“You can be a family. With everything that it means.”

Nico turned to her, face tear stained and he laughed. He let out a bubbly laugh and threw his arms around her. She held on to him, his body giving her the warmth she’d always wished she had as a girl. 

He pulled away and he turned to Jason. 

Jason smiled at him and Nico threw his arms around him and they kissed, faces stained with tears of joy and smiling the entire time. 

They turned to Reyna and she stood there until they both opened their arms wide and she nearly ran into them. 

They all stood there for a moment, warmth radiating out and their hearts so full it nearly hurt. 

Reyna still thought it was the best day of her life. 

 

Being engaged isn’t nearly all it’s cracked up to be and Reyna discovers this when Jason showed up to her apartment at three in the morning three months later. 

He was huffing and puffing and his chest heaved with his heavy breaths. It was August and hot and Reyna could see the sweat glistening off Jason. 

“What’s wrong?” She asked, in a worried tone. She was also worried that Nico wasn’t with him. Seldom did they leave one another’s side. 

Jason’s eyes watered at the question in a way Reyna had never seen and he tried to talk but every time his voice cracked. 

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t go to anyone else.” He said, his voice meek. 

Reyna put an arm around him and took him inside and sat him down on the couch. 

After a moment she spoke. “What’s wrong, Jason? Where’s Nico?”

Jason let out a sharp chuckled. Ah, so it had been something to do with Nico. 

Reyna sat down next to him. “I want to help, Jason. What happened?”

Jason began to tear up and the last time she’d seen him like this was when she was nineteen and his mother had died. 

“He. . . We’re not getting married.”

Reyna stilled. “What?”

Jason chuckled bitterly. “You know, after everything we went through, I thought this would be easy. But he’s not. . .”

Jason’s voice cracked and Reyna gave him a blanket to wrap around himself in her cool apartment. She noticed how his skin still had sweat, the cool, nervous kind that told her this hurt him beyond anything. She got him to relax until he relaxed and fell asleep. She got up while he was sleeping and went to their apartment. 

When she got there Nico was sitting in the dark of the kitchen, a glass of whiskey in his hand and his head hung low. 

“Nico. Nico, what’s wrong?” She spoke softly. 

He clenched his fist. “You know why.”

She sat across from him. “This can’t be some stupid attempt to ruin things. Seriously, Nico. What happened?”

Nico’s face was hidden in shadows that were casted by the lights from the streets outside. 

He didn’t say anything and Reyna sat back. “Don’t tell me you just one day decided you didn’t want to marry Jason. What happened, Nico?”

He downed the drink and looked at her and his face was tear stained. “I don’t know if I can love him forever.”

Reyna sighed softly. “What do you mean?”

Nico’s face crumpled under the question and he shook as small broken crying shook his body. Reyna went and wrapped her arms around him. She held him close, scared some part of his would float away and fall apart. He clutched her shirt as he cried. 

He spoke softly. “We. . . we had a fight. We talked about how I hadn’t told my father. And it turned into this argument. He yelled and I yelled. We were just so angry. He was so angry he thought I didn’t love him. And I was so angry that he didn’t believe that I loved him. And then I was hurt and we were saying hurtful things.”

Reyna sighed. “Oh, Nico.”

Nico cried again against her shirt. “And I told him he didn’t have to marry me.”

Reyna held him closer, he was a foot taller than her now, but he hunched over in his chair and she held him as he shook. 

“Why did you not tell your father?”

He shrugged. “Because I wanted to make it a surprise? Because I wanted to have us live in this bubble for just a little longer before my family got involved? None of that matters now.”

Reyna nodded. “You’re right, none of that matters now.”

They stayed that way for a while, Reyna holding him and Nico clinging to her. It reminded her of when they were kids, Nico all alone in that great big mansion the day after the funeral and when she saw him he clung to her. He drew his strength from her and she drew her bravery from him in a way. She remembered him so small and fragile, not yet knowing how to hate and not yet knowing how to be sad. 

“You need to fix this.” She said softly. 

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

Reyna gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him back to look at her. She looked at him firmly. 

“You owe him this, Nico.” She said softly. 

He wiped his eyes and sighed dejectedly. “What if it doesn’t work?”

She looked at him, light now flooding through the window in the early morning and how he looked for all the world like the world’s saddest angel and she couldn’t help but think that if she could love Nico di Angelo against all odds, then Jason could too.

 

At their engagement party everyone they knew was there. 

Hazel and Frank, Percy and Annabeth, Piper, Leo, Thalia, Hades, Persephone, Demeter, Travis and Connor Stoll, along with Will and a few others Reyna knew were Jason’s friends. 

The engagement party itself is subtle and pretty and Reyna spent a majority of it mingling with lots of their friends. It is at the point in the evening where everyone begins to ask Reyna about her latest relationship that it takes a turn. 

Reyna had been in a casual relationship with a young woman from one of her courses in law school. She didn’t work out, as it seems all of Reyna’s relationships haven’t been working out since she was young. But lately it seemed that it was more obvious. Time and time again Reyna had spent time and invested into a relationship only for it to fall apart months later. She stood against a wall and watched everyone and in a sudden wave of realization she found that she was the only single person in the room. Will was talking to someone in the corner, obviously failing terribly at flirting, but it worked well for him nonetheless. 

Something about the scene set her off. It was easy to say that she didn’t mind being single, but she looked over at Nico standing with his head leaned into Jason’s neck and they were laughing about something. She thought of how Nico would one day not need her, would start a family with Jason and while she wanted that for him, she knew that she couldn’t expect him to need her forever. She was twenty two with little more to show for it than a job at a law firm and an apartment. But very few friends and no relationship. 

It wasn’t that Reyna didn’t want someone, either. But it was hard, after she’d come back from the Marines. It was hard to talk about her feelings, and it was hard to explain that her deepest regrets were left in a desert thousands of miles away. It was hard to explain that she had phantom pains and ghosts from her past that no one could begin to understand. She thought of the girl she’s broken up with and how she’d been upset that Reyna never let her sleep the night with her. In truth, Reyna had been scared that she’d wake up one day, screaming from reliving the war in her dreams, and then she couldn’t avoid telling her about everything that had happened, everything that lived in her bones.

Jason and Nico were talking softly on the patio and Reyna went over to tell them she would be leaving the party early. 

She went around the room and before she turned the corner she stopped for a moment. 

“I love you, you know.” She heard Jason tell Nico in a soft voice.

“I know.” Nico said softly. 

“We’ll be married soon. I can’t believe it.” Jason’s voice held disbelief. 

“Believe it. Soon it’ll be just us two.” She heard them say. 

Something clenched in her stomach. 

She stepped away from the balcony and left through the front door. She was thankful when she looked over to find Will watching her worriedly, but he didn’t stop her. 

 

Reyna isn’t codependent. In the Marines they teach you that while you do have to see yourself as a whole of a team, you also had to think about yourself secondly. 

Which was why, three days after the engagement party, she couldn’t understand why it had bothered her so much that Nico and Jason thought they had each other. She was jealous. After all the work she and their friends had to go through to get them together, she should be happy. 

But all she could think about was how Nico and Jason had only each other. One day Reyna wouldn’t be able to go to their apartment at four in the morning, cold like ice in August and ghosts in her eyes and needing love more than loneliness and independence. They would have a baby, or two, or three, and Reyna would have to learn to cope. The therapists hadn’t worked, only Nico had, but soon that would change. Reyna also hated that this was what she was. Upset and dependent, not sure how to process these feelings. 

She’d been laying in bed for two days when Will showed up. 

He was the only one now with a spare key. 

He walked into her room, and saw her curled on her side and he left, only to come back a moment later with a glass of water. 

“Drink this.” He said softly. 

She did it like a soldier being given an order. 

She sat up and he settled next to her. “You have nothing to be worried about. He would never forget about us.”

She turned to him. “Us?”

Will chuckled and shook his head. “You think I’m not worried that once he’s married he’ll leave us? I am. We’ve been friends since I came here when I was sixteen. And Jason is going to marry him and one day they’ll be too busy for you when you need it.”

Reyna hung her head. Will took her hand in his. “You have nothing to worry about. Nico wouldn’t do that. He loves you, loves you more than anything.”

Reyna nodded, feeling the reassurances inflate her heart. 

Will sat quietly with her for a while, sitting peacefully in silence, just like he knew she liked. 

After a while Will got up and offered his hand to pull her up. 

Reyna looked up at him. “Where are we going?”

Will grinned wickedly at her. “Nico wanted you to help him plan the wedding.”

Reyna remembered chiffon dresses and flowers and invitations and meal plans and groaned. 


End file.
